All hail King Magnus!

by Sagar Shah - 01/12/2016

A beautiful queen sacrifice crowned Magnus Carlsen's journey for the third World title in a row. It was Carlsen's 26th birthday and he treated his fans and supporters to some scinitillating chess. Sergey Karjakin defended with all his might but was unable to hold the mighty Norwegian, succumbing to a 3.0-1.0 defeat in the rapid tiebreaks. In this report we bring to you all the action from the four rapid games and explain to you how Magnus Carlsen became the World Champion.

Magnus Carlsen wins 3.0-1.0 in the rapid tiebreak

The stage was set. After 6.0-6.0 deadlock the battlefield had shifted into shorter time controls. Chess fans were surprised at Magnus' decision of quickly making a draw in the twelfth game even though he had the white pieces. But it was a well thought out plan. As Magnus said after he won the match, "The idea was to make Sergey prepare hard for the twelfth game, while I was already looking at the rapid tiebreak." This strategy worked wonders for Magnus as he won the tiebreak of rapid games (25 mins+ 10 sec increment) with a score of 3.0-1.0. Let's go over the games one by one.

Game one - draw

Sergey had the white pieces in the first game and opened with 1.e4 (picture by Albert Silver)

Magnus played his knight back to b8 in the style of the Ruy Lopez Breyer. However, when Karjakin went for Ne2, he pushed c5 as the knight was no longer threatening to enter the d5 square.

Sergey stuck to his 6.d3 in the Ruy Lopez and was not able to get much out of the opening

Game two- draw

Magnus was completely winning game two but Karjakin put up a mighty resistance and drew the game

It was a complete heartbreak for Magnus. Firstly Carlsen played brilliantly to get winning chances. It is said that you have to take some risks in order to get your opponent out of the comfort zone. This is exactly what Magnus did. By sacrificing a pawn he brought Karjakin in a situation where he had to find the only moves to keep balance.

Rxe3 was the normal move in this position. However, Magnus took on e3 with his bishop. This allowed Black to win the pawn with ...Rxa4 Qxa4 and Nxe4. However the World Champion got some excellent compensation with Rc1 followed by b5.

Karjakin's cxb5 was clearly a mistake as Carlsen gained two pieces for a rook with Qxe4 Rxc1 Qxd5 +/-.

This position that was reached in the game is not so easy to win. But what is the theoretical evaluation of the position? GM Emil Sutovsky thinks that it is a draw:

Kf7 would have sealed the deal as Bf8 leads to a mating attack. Surprisingly Magnus missed this when he had three minutes on his clock.

Karjakin showed what an alert defender he is! ...h5! is an excellent pawn sacrifice. Once the h-pawns are doubled, the rook was sacrificed for the dark squared bishop and the game ended in a draw.

The look says it all. What a miss for Magnus Carlsen.(picture by Albert Silver)

Game three - Magnus wins

Magnus gave up his bishop on d5 but in return got the kingside pawn majority and good attacking chances

The f-pawn moved ahead and the queen joined into the battle. It was once again upto Sergey to keep finding the best defensive resources.

Magnus is confident about his position, while Sergey is concentration personified

Great players always make use of the entire board! While Black's attack was building up on the kingside, Magnus played the move ...a5 on the other wing almost without thinking! And it was a great move.

Magnus' e5-e4 was a brilliant positional sacrifice. After a few moves White was left with the sick bishop on c4 while Black had this monster on e3.

Rxc7 was the final mistake by Karjakin. He could have continued the fight in an inferior position with Rb1. After Rxc7 Black went ...Ra1 and Karjakin resigned.

Magnus agreed that this had been a very tough match. One of the best qualities of Karjakin was that even after losing the match he was in good spirits. He wished Magnus a happy birthday and promised his fans that he would be back fighting for the highest title by winning the next Candidates.

Judit Polgar did a fantastic job as the official commentator at the event

AGON CEO Ilya Merenzon (left) was very happy with the number of people who followed the World Championship not only at the venue, but also online. 10 million online viewers was his estimate.

Albert Silver from ChessBase provided some wonderful coverage in the form of stories, anecdotes, and high quality of pictures. A huge thanks to him.

Three times in a row! World Champion Magnus Carlsen! In a league of his own.

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